So many budget claims, so few facts

By ERICA WERNER
March 4, 2011

Vice President Joe Biden arrives to meet with House and Senate leaders to discuss the federal budget, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 3, 2011. He is followed by Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew, and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

It sounds like a pretty good starting point for negotiations: The White House and Capitol Hill Democrats say they’re ready to meet the GOP halfway in the latest round of budget talks, offering $50 billion in cuts compared with Republicans’ proposed $100 billion worth of reductions.

“The White House has been willing to move halfway to where they are,” said Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council. “Talking about negotiation and compromise, that’s very important.”

A news release from House Democratic WhipSteny Hoyer late Thursday posed this challenge: “Democrats meet Republicans halfway: When will Republicans agree to cut and compromise?”

Trouble is, neither the $50 billion nor the $100 billion figure holds up. And when they’re translated into real numbers, the White House is arguably meeting the GOP just one-sixth of the way — not halfway at all.

The problem is that both sides are starting with President Barack Obama‘s proposed budget for 2011, which never came close to being enacted into law. Presidential budget blueprints never do. Nonetheless, the GOP suggested $100 billion in spending cuts from that proposal.

Compared with actual current spending levels, the GOP’s proposed cuts come to around $60 billion.

The White House math is similarly fuzzy. The White House gets to its $50 billion figure by first counting $40 billion of proposed cuts from Obama’s never-passed 2011 budget that were included in a proposed spending bill that itself was never enacted.

On top of that phantom $40 billion, the White House adds $4 billion in cuts to current spending levels that the president signed into law this week as part of a two-week stopgap spending measure. And on Thursday, when Vice President Joe Biden headed to Capitol Hill to kick off negotiations on legislation to fund the government until the Sept. 30 end of the spending year, the White House announced it was putting forward an additional $6.5 billion in cuts.

That brings to around $10 billion the amount the White House is trying to cut from current spending levels, compared with $60 billion the Republicans want.

“Given the roughly $60 billion difference between us, common sense says `halfway’ would be an additional $30 billion in cuts,” said Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “So far, Democrats have offered little more than the status quo.”

The figures do serve a political purpose though. Republicans get to say they’re delivering on a promise to their conservative base, made before last November’s elections, to cut $100 billion in federal spending. And Democrats get to look like they’re serious about compromising with newly empowered Republicans — and about fiscal austerity, too — at a time of unusual public concern about the deficit.

This kabuki dance looks likely to continue as lawmakers face a March 18 deadline to finalize spending for the current fiscal year or face a government shutdown.